Below is my column in this week’s U.S. News & World Report, which is part of a debate over the question: Should Americans Be Worried About the National Security Agency’s Data Collection? On the other side was former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Professor John Yoo who answered the question in a predictable no. I suppose my answer was equally predictable.
The response of the White House and congressional allies to the disclosure of a massive surveillance program of all calls by all Verizon customers is eerily reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Various leaders like Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., assured citizens that there is nothing to fear in having the government collect all of your calls, including details like their duration, location, time and your associations. Call it the sequel: “Dr. Obamalove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love a Police State.” Our leaders are assuring us that such databanks will help them protect us from others, but who will protect us from our protectors?
The disclosure of the secret order for every call by every citizen (domestic or international) comes on the heels of a scandal involving the investigation of reporters by the administration. It came before the disclosure of another massive data-mining program that seized e-mail, photos and other private communications from some of the biggest Internet companies. It is all part of the same growing surveillance system in the United States – a system demanding absolute transparency of reporters and citizens alike.
[Check out our editorial cartoons on President Obama.]
Years ago, civil libertarians raised an outcry over the Total Information Awareness data-mining project, an operation viewed as so dangerous to privacy and civil liberties that it was formally stopped by Congress. It was designed to allow the government to follow citizens in real time by linking massive databanks and electronic systems. While many celebrated an increasingly rare victory for civil liberties, it now appears that the intelligence community merely broke the system into smaller pieces.
Each of these intrusions has been justified as making us safer, but collectively that creates a fishbowl society where privacy is little more than an illusion. We are approaching the tipping point in our system, where liberty is giving way to authoritarian power. While our current leaders may be benign, we are increasingly dependent on their good motivations and discretion for our liberty. It is precisely the system that the framers rejected at our founding. Benjamin Franklin warned of the siren’s call for power by government officials when he observed that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
If we allow these officials to strip us of our privacy, we have not failed the Framers. We have failed ourselves.
JONATHAN TURLEY is the Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University
U.S.News & World Report, June 7, 2013
I don’t know all the details behind Ed Snowden exposing the govt violating 4th Amd/ issues, but my current feelings are I’m glad to see a bunch of Americans coming out in support for this guy.
I also note Ed doesn’t/shouldn’t need a pardon for exposing the govt commenting crimes against “We the People”.
I’m not sure why Brady Manning isn’t getting more support for exposing war crimes, etc…
From the WH’s petition site:
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we petition the obama administration to:
Pardon Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden is a national hero and should be immediately issued a a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs.
Created: Jun 09, 2013
Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Government Reform, Human Rights
Learn about Petition Thresholds
Signatures needed by July 09, 2013 to reach goal of 100,000
49,837
Total signatures on this petition
50,163
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Can we have all the apparatus of a Big Brother tyranny and expect to remain free?
I don’t believe there is any theoretical basis stopping Congress from reigning in the executive. However, practically speaking, I believe this is a difficult task. That is because the Congress is complicit in lawlessness and they benefit from it in power and wealth.
To my mind, it will be the people who must demand the resignation of and investigation into the actions of this govt. and its corporate partners. We can do this by working with those few members of Congress and the judiciary who do uphold the rule of law and we do it by a mass, peaceful protest movement.
This will not be easy. I believe the govt. and it’s corporate partners will do bodily harm to those who stand for justice (as they have done in the recent past to Occupy and whistleblower, Bradley Manning). Snowden took a knowing risk of up to and including death because it was important for him to confront the lawless powerful. We will need to do the same if it is possible for us to do so.
anonymously posted 1, June 11, 2013 at 8:08 am
Editorial cartoons:
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Those were extremely well done.
It’s really about hubris! Many (not all) law enforcement and intelligence personnel don’t perceive themselves as “statute enforcers” but perceive themselves as the law itself – untethered to the statutes and ordinances passed by Congress or a state legislature. They perceive themselves as above the laws and above their oath of office to the U.S. Constitution, they largely get away with it. If anyone points that truth out to them they attack the messenger. Imagine if regular citizens could just ignore the laws at will or only follow the laws they agree with.
“Jay Carney: “We need to strike the appropriate balance between our national security and our interests in privacy …”
We already decided that in 1776.
BTW, they are not “our” privacy interests, they belong to every past American generation, and every future American generation.
Don’t be so childishly selfish.
Anonymously Yours 1, June 11, 2013 at 10:45 am
,,,,
Dredd,
The Bill of Rights meaning are up for debate….. Are they here to protect you or promote profits…. The later one wins….
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Yes, but it is a falsely framed debate.
Like the one on global warming induced climate change.
Both debates ended long ago.
The sore losers let their warp drives warp their minds.
It will not end well.
Demand Congress take back the powers they have given the executive.
Make Congress pass laws demanding ubiquitous strong encryption on all communications devices.
And seat grand juries TODAY.
In the wake of the Supreme Court case, United States v. Jones, which ruled that the government must get a warrant for a GPS surveillance the FBI is using cell phone data requests, stingray interceptors, license plate readers,etc…. to circumvent this ruling…
… https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/what-fbi-doesnt-want-you-know-about-its-surveillance-techniques …
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-booz-allen-hamilton-leak-problem-92522.html (“Edward Snowden not Booz Allen’s first leak problem”)
Does anyone really think that the agencies are going to use this massive data collection system of the NSA and other agencies to only investigate links to foreign terrorists…(i have some ocean front property for sale in Kansas)EFF has filed FOIA requests and suits showing a pattern of violations of Amerikan citizens rights involving misuse of National Security letters, violations of FISA, violations of the 4th amendment, etc…
… https://www.eff.org/wp/patterns-misconduct-fbi-intelligence-violations …
When you can believe the Boy of Orange….. We have a different game going….. It is true under the current usage of traitor Snowden is classified as such…. He just doesn’t have congressional immunity….. They are all traitors… Ok, most of them are….. Not all….
I don’t know when all the spying on private citizens started. What I do know is that in April 2001 about 3 months after Bush was installed in the White House, the Secret Service turned up at my front door with an email that I had written to a Florida legislator in hand. I had told the hateful legislator that an old fashioned firing squad was too good for him. Copies went to Jeb & the White House. The SS said it was a threat to the president!! But they didn’t question me about the email. They questioned me about my possible ties to terrorists. Did I have plans to fly? Have I been to terrorist training camps. Did I have other travel plans and finally….”have you ever been in a mental institution?”. At that time I posted this event in the old Abuzz forums at the NY Times and stated that this is what we could look forward to under the Bush presidency. I was called every kind of crazy one could think of. I received hate mail at my home. One wacko made it to my hometown at the time and took pictures of my house and posted them on the internet. It was only about 6 or 7 months later that the first “patriot act” was passed. I heard from several other people that they too had had visits from the FBI, SS or other “security” agency, a couple even before my ‘visit’. Some of this crap may have been around when Reagan was in office but the ‘Cheney/Bush’ admin. is the one that pushed it to the extremes. Obama is nuts for continuing this obscenity.
All I know is that those of us who protested were called nuts, extremists, & other names. So who are the extremists now?
“House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) didn’t mince words Tuesday when offering his assessment of 29-year-old National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
“He’s a traitor,” Boehner said in an interview with ABC. “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”
Boehner said that there are “clear safeguards” in place to protect the privacy of Americans in the implementation of the NSA programs detailed in recent days by The Guardian and The Washington Post. The top Republican in the House said that he feels “comfortable” with the NSA’s collection of millions of phone records.
“There is heavy oversight of this program by the House Intelligence Committee on a bipartisan basis and the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Boehner said.
There is an emerging debate in Washington and nationwide over how to characterize Snowden’s actions. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson (FL) on Monday said pointedly that he believes Snowden committed an “act of treason.” TPM
Digital Blackwater: How the NSA Gives Private Contractors Control of the Surveillance Sta
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/11/digital_blackwater_how_the_nsa_gives
As the Justice Department prepares to file charges against Booz Allen Hamilton employee Edward Snowden for leaking classified documents about the National Security Agency, the role of private intelligence firms has entered the national spotlight. Despite being on the job as a contract worker inside the NSA’s Hawaii office for less than three months, Snowden claimed he had power to spy on almost anyone in the country. “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if I had a personal email,” Snowden told the Guardian newspaper. Over the past decade, the U.S. intelligence community has relied increasingly on the technical expertise of private firms such as Booz Allen, SAIC, the Boeing subsidiary Narus and Northrop Grumman. About 70 percent of the national intelligence budget is now spent on the private sector. Former NSA director Michael V. Hayden has described these firms as a quote “Digital Blackwater.” We speak to Tim Shorrock, author of the book “Spies For Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/11/headlines#6111
U.S. Prepares to Charge Edward Snowden for NSA Leak
The Obama administration is reportedly preparing to charge NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden with leaking classified information. The FBI has begun questioning relatives and associates of Snowden, a former CIA employee who revealed he is behind a massive leak of documents outlining the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices. The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald has already published some of those documents and says there are more to come. Snowden’s whereabouts are unknown after he checked out of his Hong Kong hotel room on Monday. Meanwhile White House press secretary Jay Carney defended the administration’s policies on surveillance.
Jay Carney: “We need to strike the appropriate balance between our national security and our interests in privacy. The fact that, coming into office, he (President Obama) assessed, and his team assessed, programs that existed and in some cases enhanced oversight, and he believes with the oversight that exists and the implementation of the programs as they are implemented that the balance is appropriately struck, has been appropriately struck, but it is an absolutely appropriate topic for debate.”
Gene,
That’s why I dubbed the current one George W. Obama… Just a few word changes and its still the same game…
Dredd,
The Bill of Rights meaning are up for debate….. Are they here to protect you or promote profits…. The later one wins….
Swarthmore mom 1, June 11, 2013 at 10:03 am
“Obama says that the debate over the NSA’s activities is “healthy for our democracy” and a “sign of maturity.” But I think it’s a sign of forgetfulness—of Constitutional amnesia …
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Well said.
That debate ended with the Bill of Rights.
The embryo of this surveillance state was a handful of index cards in the hands of J. Edgar Hoover … now look at the monster it has become.
AY,
“If you’re not for us, you’re against us.” – G.W. “the Uncurious Traitor” Bush